"If Tom doesn't come back pretty soon I'll marry Milt Dale," retorted Bo, tauntingly.

This fired Helen's cheeks with red.

"But, child," she protested, half angry, half grave. "Milt and I are engaged."

"Sure. Only you're so slow. There's many a slip--you know."

"Bo, I tell you Tom will come back," replied Helen, earnestly. "I feel it. There was something fine in that cowboy. He understood me better than you or Milt, either.... And he was perfectly wild in love with you."

"Oh! WAS he?"

"Very much more than you deserved, Bo Rayner."

Then occurred one of Bo's sweet, bewildering, unexpected transformations. Her defiance, resentment, rebelliousness, vanished from a softly agitated face.

"Oh, Nell, I know that.... You just watch me if I ever get another chance at him!... Then--maybe he'd never drink again!"

"Bo, be happy--and be good. Don't ride off any more--don't tease the boys. It'll all come right in the end."

Bo recovered her equanimity quickly enough.

"Humph! You can afford to be cheerful. You've got a man who can't live when you're out of his sight. He's like a fish on dry land.... And you--why, once you were an old pessimist!"

Bo was not to be consoled or changed. Helen could only sigh and pray that her convictions would be verified.

The first day of July brought an early thunder-storm, just at sunrise. It roared and flared and rolled away, leaving a gorgeous golden cloud pageant in the sky and a fresh, sweetly smelling, glistening green range that delighted Helen's eye.